HOBINSON 



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57 
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Book i 



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Cl)c martnvcb prcsiticnt: 



SERMON 



'UEA( IIKI) IN THE 



FIRST PRESBYTKHIAN CIHUCH, BllOOKLYX, N. Y., 

BY TIIK I'ASTOi:. 

REV. CIIAS. S. ROBIlNSOiS", 

ON THE MulIXINti OF 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN F. TKOW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE STREET, 

186S. 



L.~ 



.Tf(o5 



Brooklyn, N. Y., April '[7th, 1865 
Rev. Chas. S. Kobinson : 

Dear Sir : As members of the congregation to which you minister, we wish 
to indicate to you our warm appreciation of the discourse delivered in your pulpit 
on yesterday morning, occasioned by that appalling dispensation of Providence 
which has imprinted the deepest sorrow in every loyal bosom in this afflicted 
land. 

We regard the Sermon as embodying a fitting and felicitous tribute to the 
character of Abraham Lincoln, our late President, who has fallen an illustrious 
martyr to the cause of constitutional government and universal freedom of man. 
We respectfully request that you will furnish us a copy of it for the press, 
believing that by its preservation in a permanent form it will embody a just record, 
proper to be filed among the archives of the Church, and handed down to our chil- 
dren, of tlie unwavering loyalty of Pastor and people to the cause of national 
integrity and constitutional rule during these eventful and perilous years of con- 
flict with organized and armed rebellion. 
Witli assurances of our cordial regards : 

FisHEU Howe, Henry Sheldon, 

Cyrus P. Smith, Lowell IIoLBnooK, 

Silas H. Stringham, Jonathan Ooden, 

Samuel Hutchinson, Henry Butler, 

Henry Ide, W. Hastings, 

Henry K. Sheldon, Noah T. Swezey, 

Daniel Pomeroy, James li. Taylor, 

Jonathan D. Steele, Eiciiard J. Dodob, 

Andrew A. Smith, Hobart Ford, 

Alexander M. Earle, Abuah Fisher. 



First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, April \8th, 1865. 
To Messrs. Fisher Howe, Hon. C. P. Smith, Rear Admiral S. H. Stringham, 
Samuel Hutchinson, and others : 

Gentlemen : The Discourse which you request, prepared so hurriedly in the 
midst of such confusion and excitement, takes all its value from your cordial en- 
dorsement of its sentiments. 

We are just closing a four years' war ; the air is vibrating with tidings of vic- 
tory as I write. But we are beginning a new war of more than four years, the 
weapons of which are not carnal. 

Much of the peril of that conflict will be forestalled by a frank, firm stand taken 
at the outset. And I am unaffectedly liappy in your willingness to commit your- 
selves, as a church, now with me,, tO'^the truth, fearless as you all have ever been 
in your steadfastness to the princifUJS involved in the war. 
Very truly 'and affectionately. 

Your friend and Pastor, 

Chas. S. Robinson. 



2:1)0 iHavtijvcb preoibcnt. 



IIk was a (iooi) MAN, AND X JisT. — I.ulvC xxili : 50. 

One other Sab})ath like this I remember, and 
only one; that of which this is the exact anniver- 
sary, four years ago. What humiliated the nation 
then is now measurably rectified. The ensign of our 
country floats once more on the ramparts from which 
it had just been torn by the fierce hand of treason. 
The same batteries that hurled shot and shell at the 
fortress, whose name has l)ecome historic, have been 
forced to pour forth their empty salutes in honor of 
the restoration. And the jn-oclamation is already in 
the air, which was to summon the grateful Repul)lic 
to a thanksgiving for the manifold mercy of Al- 
mighty God. 

Right in the midst of our rejoicing we are dashed 
into sorrow deeper than ever. To-day it is not the 
humbling of our pride that makes us mourn, but the 
wounding of our hearts in their keenest sensibilities. 
For he who has been our leader lies low in his cof- 
fin ; foul nuirder has been done at the capital ; and 
the nation stands hushed in the presence of its un- 
buried dead. 



Have the old days of barbarism returned upon 
us? Is assassination become civilized? Has the 
bullet of a murderer recognition as a belligerent 
right? In what age do we live? Is justice dead? 
Where are we ? How happens it that the wires 
quiver with tidings of deeds worthy only of the dark- 
est years of Venetian conspiracy and shame ? 

I said, we have got the flag back again on Sum- 
ter. So we have. But only at half-mast. It reached 
the staff just in time to droop. Men began to cheer 
— suddenly they turn to wailing. The triumph seems 
a mockery. Victory waits recognition unheeded, for 
the bells are tolling. He who made our success wel- 
come is not here to share it. Abraham Lincoln, 
the honored and beloved head of the nation, is no 
more ! 

My brethren, bear me record here to-day. This 
pulpit has never uttered one timid, troubled Avord in 
these four years. I have not lost heart for a moment 
in the essential righteousness of our cause, nor confi- 
dence in the final success that would come to it. You 
will misunderstand my language now, and mistake 
my temper, if you imagine I am cowed into any wav- 
ering, startled into any irresolution, or grieved into 
any distrust, by the terrible events of the hour. 
But I shall not attempt to conceal from you that I 
am shocked more than ever before, and under the 
cloud of God's providence as I never expected to be. 
I do not know the meaning of this awful transaction. 



I could almost wish it was the custom to wear sack- 
clotli, and put a>li('s on HioiinuTs' heads. All the 
day would I titthigly sit silent under the shadow of 
a common grief with you. I sj)eak truly wlien I say, 
I have met no greater sorrow in my manly life than 
this. " I behave myself as though he had been my 
friend ur brother; I bow down heavily, as one that 
mourneth for his mother." And all this sensibility, 
I know, you are sharing with me. 

The feeling which rests on each niind and heart 
to-day is not a simple feeling. To us all it is, in some 
measure, undefined. I cannot be of any real help to 
you, I fear, save in the way of giving you an analysis 
of your grief, and suggesting the form of its expres- 
sion. 

I. — Let me say, then, that in this complex mourn- 
ing of heart is found, first of all, our admiration of 
that great man's character, whose sudden death has 
saddened the entire nation. Surely, you will not 
need that I enter into argument to prove that these 
words of the text I have chosen, applied to the coun- 
sellor from Arimathea in the inspired record, are 
most fitting when applied to our late Chief Magis- 
trate. 

He was "a cjood man," Calleil bv the i?reat voice 
of the American people to leave his rural home, and 
assume the highest honors it could confer, his parting 
request to his old friends and neighT)oi*s wiis only for 
their continuous prayers. Witli the sincerest humil- 



6 

ity, he accepted his place as the minister of the 
nation, and the servant of God. He had no higher 
ambition than to know his duty and perform it. He 
felt himself swept out into the current of a purpose, 
as majestic in grandeur as it was celestial in origin ; 
the sublime purpose of Him to whom nations belong, 
to care for this western Kepublic in the hour of its 
manifest peril. From that day to this, he has never 
swerved from the line of his integrity. No man has 
ever been maligned as he has ; no man has ever out- 
lived abuse as he has. When the nation shall have 
laid his remains in the burial-yard of the village 
where he lived, there will never be heard a hiss by 
his tomb-stone, there will be no trail of any serpent 
across his grave. Even now we have hardly ceased 
to hear the dignified tones of his voice, wonderfully 
pathetic, almost prophetic, as he told us, in the second 
inaugural address, of the simplicity of his faith, the 
humility of his estimate of himself, and his profound 
reliance upon the infinite God. 

He was a "just" man. Through all these years 
it has been touching to notice how implicitly the 
true-hearted believed Abraham Lincoln to be true. 
The mean hirelings of place, and the mere parasites 
of office, kept out of his way. The demagogues and 
partisans grew passionate over his perversity to their 
principles, and called him an impracticable leader, 
because of his steadfast loyalty to truth and fairness 
as between man and man. When one received injus- 



tico, and ooiiUl not, in tlir contusions of tlic times, 
make Ills rii^hteoiisness a})poar, liou- instinctively he 
tlioiiglit oftlic I'rcsidcnt, and knew, it' lie could only 
have a hearing from him, all would he veil. Wlien 
military commanders failed, and })opular clamor was 
raised under the dangerous disappointment, calndy 
and generously the good man waited till they shouM 
make another trial. He stood true to those, who 
were seeking to undermine his power, with a matrna- 
niraity sublime. Oh, the patience of that great, kind 
heart, in the days when it cost something to he con- 
siderate ! ^Vnd now, after the smoke has cleared 
away fr<mi two political battle-fields, fought more 
savagely than any other such in our history, there 
comes to view no one act of his at which a citizen 
will blush. His sun went down while to us it yet 
seemed dav ; but at the evenini? time it v.as liffht. 
He died at the height of his ftime. All rancor of 
party has disappeared. The clouds that dimmed 
his noon gather now, at the twilight, to glow in his 
praise. 

So much, then, is true ; " he was a good man, and 
a just." But there is a question, which our intelli- 
gent, Bible-reading people are wont to ask, when any 
one of their great men dies — was he a Christian 
man ? There is no reason why we should turn away, 
unanswered, an in<piiry like this. It is not an im- 
pertinent and obtrusive investigation of his interior 
life. He made no mystery of his faith. His own 



8 

tale of his religious experience is sometliing like this 
— coming in more than one way, and attested with 
more than one witness : 

" When I left Springfield, I felt my utter dependence upon God. 
riie responsibility weighed heavily upon my heart. I knew I should 
fail without a divine help. But I was not then a Christian. When 
my child died, I felt that I needed the comfort of the Gospel. It 
was the severest affliction that ever fell upon me. Then I wanted 
to he a Christian. But never did I feel that I reached tlie point, 
till I wandered one day, alone, among the graves of the boys that 
fell at Gettysburg. There, when I read the inscriptions, so full of 
hope and faith, I began to think I loved and trusted Jesus as my 
Saviour." 

Thus, our image of this humble, noble man, rises 
on our vision complete. Gifted with great intellec- 
tual power ; proverbial for his rectitude ; bearing 
"honest" for his title as Aristides bore "just" for 
his; affectionate, with all the instincts of common 
humanity, even to the lowliest ; fearless and brave ; 
he added the crowning grace to his memory with his 
unaffected piety as a Christian. 

II. — For all this the nation mourns his loss. But 
1 am not mistaken in believing there is an element in 
our sorrow here to-day, far more subtle and experi- 
mental than mere admiration of his spotless character. 
There is, in the second place, a feeling of personal 
bereavement. Singularly identified with us all has 
this man come to be. Test your heart now. Tell 
me, of all the leaders in civil life, of all the com- 
manders in the field, who has the hold upon your 



manly affection that tliis f/reat-liearted man of tlie 
people had t Yciw idcnl of liiiii was like that of a re- 
lative — one of your houseliokl. Never, till the hand 
of an assassin struck him, did you know liow dear he 
was. I see, in all this, that which makes me ha})py 
and hopeful; here is a token of the infinite capaci- 
ties of tenderness in tlie spirit of the American 
people. 

I think, to-day, as the fearful news is flaslied 
across the land, of the families that live in tlie val- 
leys, antl among the hills, and over the prairies, to 
some member of wliicli he has been kind, and so has 
endeared himself to all. How they will weep as for 
a brother beloved ! Villacje bells are knellinir all 
over the continent. A irreat hand waved darklv 
across the landscape, and swooped the banuei*s down 
from exultation into grief Oil, we have never known 
how many lettei^s his own \)rn has written to bereaved 
wives and mourning mothers ! When news of a ter- 
rible death, in many an inconspicuous household, was 
to be conmiunicated, the President of the United 
States took time, from his few hours of privacy, to 
send an epistle, so generous, so full of grateful sym- 
pathy, so gentle and appreciative, that the woundeJ 
hearts felt soothed, and bore the bereavement with- 
out breaking. He knew how to say kind things so 
well, and loved to say them ! 

I think of the soldiers, also, whose interests he 
watched like a jealous parent. In these trying times 



10 

of partisanship and confusion there was always a 
likelihood of haste, and consequent injustice, in the 
administration of military tribunals. Many a man, 
innocent of alleged inadvertence or crime, was un- 
able to show it, and so was in peril of shame or death. 
Patiently that busy President studied out complicated 
accounts ; bent all his legal ability to the investiga- 
tion of contradictory testimony ; read the long, tedious 
documents on either side ; simply determined that 
every man should get his due ; and then, beyond that, 
as much leniency as was safe to give him. How the 
soldiei's loved him ! They are telling to each other, 
this very day, stories of his kindness to them. Only 
last week he spent the day that remained to him in 
Richmond, going through the wards of the hospitals, 
saluting, with his warm-hearted grasp, each wounded 
hero in turn ; and, when they had no hands to offer, 
he laid his big palm on their foreheads, and thanked 
them in the name of the country ! 

I think, more than all, of the poor freedmen, 
when they hear of the President's death. How they 
will wonder, and will wail ! They called him 
" Father," as if it were part of his name. Oh, they 
believed in Abraham Lincoln ! They expected him, 
as the Israelites did Moses. Some, no doubt, imagin- 
ed he was a deity. They were unsophisticated and 
ignorant, and that good, kind man seemed so like a 
being from heaven. They said he would come. 
They prayed he would come. They waited for him 



11 

to como. And tlieii lie caiiu' ! WIkmi tliosc untti- 
tored sons ot flavery saw liini in the streets of the 
rebel capital, after its capture, they fairly Masphenied, 
without being aware of it. He seemed to them and 
theii' children a second Messiah. He never broke a 
promise to their hoi)e. When they were certain ho 
had uttered one word, they rested on it, as they 
would on God's. He stood by the poor creatures 
his hand had freed, under all obloquy and suspicion. 
He put his signature to a parchment that made them 
nuMi and women with souls and bodies. Then the 
enfranchised millions opened their very souls to liim, 
as if out under the sunshine. His name was a spell 
to quiet or to rouse them. What will tliey do, now 
he is dead ! Alas ! alas ! for the weeping and the 
wonder the}' will have, when they know how he 
died ! 

Thus, we all weep together. Christian resignation 
offers its high consolations, and we have no spirit of 
murmuring or complaint Yet, none of us will deny 
that this is the severest blow, which, as a great 
people, we have ever received. The nation h:i<5, 
twice before, lost its Chief Magistrate by death ; but 
there has been no mourning like this to-day. 

HI. — A third element in our grief, under this 
afflictive dispensation of Providence, is the fear of 
impending calamity. It is inq)ossible to free our 
minds of the deepest solicitude for the future. Alas ! 
we say, for the nation bereaved of its pilot, when 



12 

out in the midst of such a sea as this ! Palinurus 
ha8 been suddenly swept, by a wave, from the helm. 
I suppose this anxiety is natural ; and yet, I am 
sure, it is needless. Difficult questions are coming 
up. The practical wisdom of our recognized leader 
was cutting knots which men's perversity kept tying. 
We trusted him. We were knitting ourselves to- 
gether in closer confidence in his decisions. That 
shrewd, native judgment, that clear-sighted penetra- 
tion, that incorruptible integrity — oh, how we used 
to throw ourselves back upon qualities like these, 
and feel secure ! We found fault with him more 
than once; but, eventually, he was justified in his 
course. We said lie was slow ; but he went as fast 
as God did. He reasoned witli los^ic that events 
taught Mm. We were inordinately cast down under 
defeat; lie kept us cheerful. We grew boisterous 
under victory ; he was calm himself, but glad to have 
us so happy. He was never disheartened, never un- 
duly elated. When he failed, he became humbler ; 
when he succeeded, he thanked God. When the way 
was open, he was as alert as anybody ; when the way 
was hedged up, he was strong enough to sit still. 
By and bye we learned to know him well and rest 
in him sublimely. Meantime, he urged us to look 
beyond him. He made us devout. Put a man on 
the busiest street-corner, and let him keep looking 
upward, and he will gather a crowd that will all be 
looking upward. So our President gave unaffected 



13 

praise to (ioil, until we all began to sing witli him. 
Spectacles like these, which have been witnessed daily, 
have lu'vcr bcni known in this land before; Mammon 
luis learned the doxologies belonging to God. 

When such a leader is taken suddenly away, there 
is nothing unphilosopliical in the feeling of utter dis- 
may and apprehension tliat men are apt to experience. 
But, in our case, all this is needless. My brethren, I 
commend to your calm consideration, one solemn 
thought, concerning the lessons of all history. Men 
are nothing but instruments in the hands of their 
Maker, in working out his purposes. Just as a sculp- 
tor needs now a chisel, now a file, now a graver, and 
never thinks he must apologize or explain to us, who 
stand by to watch him, why he drops one tool, or 
takes up another ; for he is making a statue, which he 
intends for a worthy immortality, — so the all-wise 
God, carrying out his vast plans, assumes one man 
and lays aside another, and never answers any of our 
curious questions, while his " eternal Thought moves 
on his undisturbed affi\ii*s." We are to blame seri- 
ously, if we allow ourselves to be depressed witli 
forebodings. God's rule, in all this four years' war, has 
been, to bring to nought the things that are, not by 
the things that are, but l)y the things that are not. 
We have lived under the unvarying disci])line of 
surprise. By this time, we ought to have learned 
our lesson. 

\\'ith courage undiminished, therefore, let us be- 



14 

lieve that God will fit this coming man for the duties 
of his unexpected office. Be on the alert now for 
the discovery of some new purpose. The infinite 
plans of the Almighty are shifting their phase for 
some disclosure that will relieve our embarrassment. 
It is expedient that even such offences as these should 
come. There can be no doubt that God means to 
make good out of this evil. And the question is 
this : Will you and I be quiet in all the pain of our 
bereavement, if we are only sure that the event will 
be overruled to the benefit of the cause, the race, the 
nation ? Will we accept the counsel of Caiaphas as 
possibly adapted to our crisis : " Ye know nothing 
at all ; nor consider that it is expedient that one man 
should die for the people, and that the whole nation 
perish not?" Perhaps, in this very alarm for the 
future, there will be found a healthier spirit for us all. 
IV. — For, in the fourth place, I remark, we find, 
as an element in our mourning today, a deep-seated 
indignation at the horrible crime which has been 
committed. Humanity sickens and shudders at the 
diabolical ingenuity, the malignant hatred, of this 
culminating act of the rebellion. If there ever was a 
time in which to obey the command, " Be ye angry, 
and sin not," that time has come now. " There was 
no such deed done nor seen from the day that the 
Children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt 
unto this day ; consider of it, take advice, and speak 
your minds." 



15 

Let a, va^t public sentiment be aroused and or- 
ganized, that shall exhibit tliis vile wickedness in its 
true li<dit. I^t us invoke Christendom to make it 
an eternal hissing. With a recoil of feeling so vio- 
lent that it wearies my will, and shocks my very 
being, with uttermost loathing for an offence so 
abominable ; seeing in it that keen, fine relish of 
depravity that marks it not only as devilish, but one 
of the master- works of the prince of devils, I stand 
simply appalled — wondering, with unspeakable won- 
der, how it can be accepted by any creature wearing 
the form of civilized humanity ! It is an outrage on 
the community, whose tolerance it defies. It is an 
insult to decency, a rebuke to forbearance, an offence 
unto God. It is without the power of language to 
reach the condemnation it merits. The words of 
denunciation die on my lips in their own feebleness. 
It is with an aftecting sense of gratitude to God that 
I discover the positive poverty of my mother-tongue 
in e])ithets of vileness befitting its description. As 
much as in you is, live peaceably with all men ; but 
there ought to be a voice of opinion so stern, so out- 
spoken, that no man of credited decency should stand 
tamely by and hear a crime, so unparalleled in its 
baseness, even extenuated. 

Is the world going back into savagery i Is this 
Christian land to become the rival of Dahomey^ 
This is no isolated act. The history of this slave- 
holders" rebellion is full of such. Again and again 



16 

have tlie lives of our chief men been threatened with 
the dirk, the bullet, and the knife. Poison has been 
put in their food. Their homes have been entered 
by spies. Their steps have been way-laid in the 
streets. And our common people have fared no 
better. Quiet villages have been invaded, and women 
and children shot down with fiendish glee. Cars, 
crowded with unsuspicious travellers, have been thrown 
from the track. Public builclino^s have been fired 
over a whole city at once. And ail this under the 
shadow of authority claimed through a paper com- 
mission. Yet the nation has kept its temper. The 
spectacle of a great people, thus outraged beyond a 
parallel, yet so patient and forbearing, has been sub- 
lime enough to make our enemies wonder. They 
have called our magnanimity meanness, and compli- 
mented us upon our manifold spaniel-like virtues, 
with sarcasm that burnt in upon manly sensibility 
like fire. 

This assassination is the earliest reply which chiv- 
alry has had to make to forbearance unmeasured and 
friendliness almost fraternal. Now, let us have done 
with it ! Talk to me no more of " our miss^uided 
brethren." Some are misguided — and it is those 
who misguide them I denounce. Cain was brother 
to Abel. Relationship is a perilous thing when it 
says, "Art thou in health, my brother," and then 
stabs under the fifth rib. Talk to me no more of the 
"same race, educated at the same colleges, born of 



the same ])loo(l.'" Satan Avas of tlie same racy as 
Gabriel, and t'ducated at the same celestial school of 
love and t^race ; l>nt one ])ecame a rebel, and between 
them ever thereafter was " a great gulf fixed."* Tie 
cannot be ])rother of mine, he belongs to no race of 
mine, who, in the foul cause of human bondaiice, fij^hts 

7 7 O ' O 

with a rural massacre, makes war with midnight 
ai'son, and crowns his unmanly barbarity with stab- 
bing a sick man in his bed, and shooting au unarmed 
husband in the very sight of his wife ! 

Let no one deem this violence unnecessary. They 
tell us that none of our utterances are lost ; the 
vilirations of the air on which they fall perpetuate 
them into an eternity of circles, spreading wider and 
wider. If I am ever again to meet these denunci- 
ations of mine, conscientiously spoken in this Christian 
pulpit, let me find them in company with a declara- 
tion that will explain them. There are, in this com- 
munity, to-day, men and rcomen — God forgive them ! — 
nurtured under the hot debasements and vile luxuries 
of the slave system, sojourning here on our charitable 
sufterance, in order meanly to escape the perils of 
the ruinous war they have helped to incite, who 
clai> their hands in applause of this mui'der ! I think, 
in serious self-defence, we are to see that this tliiuir is 
ended. This wickedness clamors for retributive 
judgment, and invokes the wrath of God. 

V. — Thus I am led, naturally, to speak of a tifth 
element in (»ur feeling of mourning to-day; the pro- 



18 

found conviction of necessity that the law of the 
land should now take its course in relation to all the 
aiders and abettors of this infamous rebellion. There 
was, perhaps, needed one more proof of the unutter- 
able sin of treason. Here has it been flashed out 
upon us, like the final stroke of a departing thunder- 
storm, the least expected, but the most fearfully 
destructive of all that have fallen. We have been 
growing more and more loose in our estimates of 
guilt. We were catching from each other a spirit of 
sentimentalism that boded no good. Tired of war, 
longing for quiet, eager for trade, sickened with 
bloodshed, we were ready to say, let the criminals be 
pardoned, let the penalties of law be remitted. The 
next act in our national history was, in all likelihood, 
to be a general amnesty proclamation. Suddenly, 
the hand which would have signed it was smitten 
down into death. Then our eyes were opened to the 
fixed, unalterable malignity in the temper of our foes. 
A great conspiracy is disclosed. Murder is done at 
the capital. Our beloved President becomes a victim 
to the very magnanimity he was inculcating. Warn- 
ed fully of the peril, he would not believe human 
nature could be so base. He trusted, and was be- 
trayed. The entire government was menaced, in the 
moment of its open-hearted proifer of good will. 

We are satisfied that all this is perilous pusilla- 
nimity now. There is no fitness of generosity to 
malignants venomous as these. So, while our hearts 



19 

are cliilkMl, tlicir aft'cctions luirii(Ml Icick on them- 
selves in curdling horror, with pity inefta])le, antl 
sorrow that cannot l)e repressed, we are united in 
saying, let the will of the law' l)e done! When 
there was rebellion in heaven, the rebels were pun- 
ished. God sent the fallen angels to lidl. We are 
not to find fault with that kind of administration. 
Men can forgive. I do not believe there is one 
unkind sentiment in any heart in the house of God 
this day. We draw a distinction, world-wide, be- 
tween a crime and a criminal. The one we denounce, 
the other we pity. But the majesty of law must be 
vindicated. No puritan had a right to l)e the de- 
fender of Guy Fawkes. No patriot had a right to 
screen Benedict Arnold from justice. Let there be 
now no violence. Let the common people be spared. 
But, on the track of the villains that have opened 
this insurrection, and nr2:ed it alonc^ its Idoodv track 
even to this dreadful consummation, let the footsteps 
of justice follow swiftly, relentlessly. 

It may, possibly, be said, by some, that this assas- 
sination of the officers of government is a mere act 
of madness done by a ])race of frantic fanatics ; and 
that it is not equitable and fair to liold a whole peo- 
ple responsible for its wickedness. 

Let it ])e said, in reply, that the tidings of this 
murder, going into the ranks of rebellion, will 1)^' 
hailed with a howd of gladness and satisfaction, iMpial 
to the yell in Pandemonium, when Satan seduced 



20 

Adam, and buried a race in roin. It will never be 
disowned, save by a few of the most exposed leaders, 
who, seeing in it tbeir own ruin, will repent, not like 
Peter, for sin, but like Judas, for the results of sin. 
Even now, the instincts of every rebel sympathizer 
are on the alert to befriend the assassins, and block 
the way of justice. Furthermore, let it be said, that 
this crime happens to be conspicuous and heart-rend- 
ing, because it has marked the nation's idol for its 
victim ; but it is only one of fifty thousand murders, 
actual, intelligent, committed during the last two 
years by the parties in power through the revolted 
States. And these murders in the prisons are, every 
one of them, just so much the more diabolical, as 
starvation slowly is more horrible than the quicker 
death of the bullet. The spirit is the same in all 
cases. This wickedness is the legitimate outgrowth 
of that system of slavery which originated the rebel- 
lion, and debauched, from time immemorial, all the 
finer instincts of man. 

Hence, there is no revenge in the popular heart 
to-day, but only retribution. We pity the malefac- 
tors ; we pray for them ; but in this determination 
we are fixed — ^let the majesty of the law be vindi- 
cated upon them as traitors ; let justice pursue them, 
one by one ; let the gates of the world be closed to 
their search for asylum ; let judgment follow on as 
implacable as a doom. 

VI. — I might well pause here, in the enumeration 



21 

of t'k'iiieiits in the leoling we arc all elKTisliiiii; under 
the pressure of this heart-rendinp: sorrow. But there 
is one more, which I detect in my own lieart, and 
know is in the lieart- <>f my hearers. We desire to 
kn(»w what instruction the all-wise God has intended 
us to receive. We wouhl inciuire for Ilis counsels, and 
hunihly learn of Tlini. My office, as a Christian 
minister, will be discharged this morning, when I 
have sought to point out to you some few of the les- 
sons forced into vivid illumination by this terrible 
dispensation of Providence. 

1. First of all, then, let us learn here how history 
is composed. I am certain we have no proper con- 
ception of the magnitude of an event like this. We 
are too near it to discover its proportion??. Travellers 
tell ns they are always disappointed with the earliest 
glimpse of vast mountains. Standing close under 
the shadow of awful forms, so peerless in majesty, 
they have no adequate notions of their loftiness and 
amazing mass. These need distance on the landscape 
to be truly appreciated. So an event like this is 
never really reverenced as it should l)e. It needs 
time for the free play of the imagination. We are 
all unconscious of the spectacle we are to present to 
posterity. 

The dreadful deed, Avhieh has filled our minds 
with horror, will be a growing vision of weird wick- 
edness, shining with a strange luridness of its own, as 
one of the wildest trairedies of the world's most un- 



22 

welcome remembrance. It ranks with the suicide of 
Cleopatra, the death of Caesar, the murder of Wil- 
liam the Silent, the conspiracy of Catiline, the gun- 
powder plot of Guy Fawkes, the ix'perial incidents in 
the wide empire of crime. To us the event seems 
simply personal ; our views of it are necessarily nar- 
row. Our leader has fallen. Our government has 
been menaced. But we only sj^eculate upon its im- 
mediate results. The criminals will soon be appre- 
hended. The insurrection will end, and all the ex- 
citement will subside. Bat when the mighty future 
shall receive the inheritance, it will be weighed by 
other balances, and estimated more truly. 

Thus history selects and perpetuates its own ma- 
terials. Each" thought, each word, each deed, each 
flash of sentiment, each outbreak of passion, each 
exercise of influence, enters into the grand aggregate 
of human recollection and intelligence, which we call 
our Age. Out of this the pen of unerring history 
compiles its annals. 

'• For Humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyi- stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn." 

2. In the second place, let us learn the essential 
iniquity and barbarism there is in any system of hu- 
man oppression. It was long ago remarked by La- 
martine, that no man ever bound a chain around 



23 

the neck of hU ft'llou-mnii, witliout God's biiwliiig a 
cliaiii (»f ('(jiial links aroiiiid liis own. Wlioever de- 
bases the image of God will certainly Ix'come debased. 
This thought receives an illustration here that amounts 
almost to a demonstration. This erim*' is tin- mani- 
fest outshoot of American slavery. 

T suj^pose no one remains now who doubts that 
all this aggregated mass of abomination, this summa- 
tion of villanies, whose tide of murky violence is 
rolling itself along before our weary eyes, had its 
fountain head in the malignant ambition of ji few 
men, who started the stream of revolution in order 
to waft themselves into continuous power. These 
miserable criminals, whom justice is pursuing with 
eager scent, are but the merest minute-hands on the 
outermost dial of that popular sentiment which they 
represent. The spring that has set them in motion, 
the mechanism that gave them all their power, even 
the delicate balances that have timed their present 
success, are out of sight, yet easily discoverable in the 
dark intricacies of that domestic and })olitical life 
based on the humiliation of a feebler race. You 
may tear these index- pointers away, but the clock- 
work will run on. There will still remain the secret 
progress of debasement, on the bold fiice of which they 
have happened to become conspicuous. You will 
gain nothing till you tear the hideous system to 
pieces, and break the spring that lies coiled within it. 

What is this crime ? Nothing new, surely ; only 



24 

more public. It is one of a million crimes, eacli of 
wLicli God has seen. The same reckless imperi- 
ousness of will, that has so many times struck at 
laws, has now struck at the Executive of law — that 
is all. The same thwarted passion, that has more 
than once shot a slave unpunished, now has shot a 
President — that is all. That same spirit is unsub- 
dued. It is ready to fly in the face of anything that 
stands in its way. To continue a system of social 
life that now has become a necessity in a measure, as 
a minister to laziness and lust, these people have dis- 
membered the church, divided the republic, fought 
their own brothers, and at last taken to murder and 
assassination. No one can fail to see that there is 
one single line of connection running all through the 
history of this infamous rebellion. The pride of 
power, engendered by the tyranny, petty at first, 
over the unprotected black race, has betrayed these 
miserable wretches into the mistake of supposing 
they could lord it over the white race — that is all. 

This latest crime is more showy, but the hearts 
are no blacker than before. And the hearts have 
been made black, by the system. How else will you 
explain this appalling fact; there are women^ with 
babes in their arms, who will declare that this murder 
in cold blood of a man in the presence of his wife is 
cMvalrous! This is monstrous, when judged by any 
system of philosophy. There is but one solution of 
the mystery : underlying all the ferocity of such a 



25 

seiitiineiit, is found the subtle working of mere pri«l"- 
of caste. Slavery has debased the feminine ami liu- 
nian sentiments witli wliidi they were havu. That 
code of morals always did tend to l»;irl>arism. Tlic 
youiiLT men of the South wei-e corrupt before the war. 
The women were l)rutalized in the finer feelings of 
natural decency. They Avould send women to ])e 
stripped and whii)ped by men for a price. Passion 
grows wild with mere indulgence. Hence it is that a 
deed combininsr so much of execrable meanness with 
so much of hellish cruelty, finds women unsexed 
enough to applaud it ! Home on the diabolical sys- 
tem it represents, do I soberly urge the responsibility 
of this murder. It is high time to have done with 
it, root and branches. 

3. Once more : Let us learn here to-day the 
power of martyrdon] in fixing great principles. Pres- 
ident Lincoln has been useful in his life, far beyond 
what ftills to the common lot of even the most 
patriotic and public-spirited men. But his death 
has confirmed his usefulness— made it illustrious, 
influential, and immortal. 

In the natural course of time his period of official 
serNdce would have ended, llis administration of the 
government would have l)een canvassed cautiously, 
and, perhaps, uncharitably criticised, and, l)y some 
j)arties, condemned. By this sudden, tragic close of 
it, however, it has been forced into prominence. It 
will now be marked forever. All the principles it 



26 

has aimed to establish are settled hereafter beyond a 
peradventure. The documents he has added to the 
archives of the nation are sealed with blood. This 
republic will take no step backwards from the vant- 
age-ground to which he had led the banner of its 
sovereignty. Even his policy will hav^e weightier 
influence than that proposed by any living man. The 
noble archer has fallen in death, before he could 
really know how princely were the shots he made ; 
but the arrows he sped latest are yet out in the air, 
over the sea, and will strike unerringly the mark. 
And when they who stand nearest to the spot where 
the shafts hang quivering, look around to discover 
whose was the sinewy strength that sent them so 
forcefully and so true, they will find that another 
hand, just as firm, has assumed the bow, and another 
eye, just as keen, has discerned the same target. 

They who oppose an honest man living, are ever 
among the first to honor him dead. Nobody dares 
uproot a standard planted by a loved leader who 
poured out his life at the foot of its staff. Perhaps 
it was this which was needed to bring our people 
together permanently. Perhaps this was the essen- 
tial condition of our restoration to unity, that we 
become reconciled over an open grave. It may be 
that party-spirit will yield now, and bury the bitter- 
ness of its animosity in a martyr's tomb. 

You will recall the touching fable of Roman his- 
tory. A vast seam opened in the land, in the very 



27 

midst ot" tl:e Fdiiiin, di-cltisiiii,^ a yawniiiLT al'V^s 
uliicli llieycouid not fill with rocks orwitli >(»il. At 
last the Rootli.sayei*3 declared that the commonwealth 
could he })i('S('rv('d (.uly l)y closing the gulf; aii<l 
the Linlf could l)e closed only l»y devoting to the 
gods, Avho had ()])encd it, what constituted the piin- 
cipal glory and strength <>f the people. At this all 
stood aghast. But there was one Curtius, a youth of 
high l»irth, who, hearing the deliverance, demanded 
oi' his countrymen whether their arms and their 
courage were not the most valuahle possessions they 
owned. They gave him assent Avith their silence. 
And then the heroic warrior, arraying himself in full 
armor, and mounting his horse, rode headlong into 
the chasm ; whereupon the earth immediately closed, 
and over the memorable spot swept a placid lake 
bearing his name. 

Shall we say that now our divided country will 
come together again, when he who seemed the glory 
and strength of the American people has gone down 
in the breach ? Shall not his sacrifice avail for 
propitiation to that foul spirit of sectional pride 
which rent the land £isunder? 

4. And this leads me on to mention a final lesson. 
We see now the inevitable triunij)h and perpetuity 
of our cause. We are not hero-worshij^pers in any 
degree. We never were. But we believe in (iod. 
We (Mit<'iT<l upon this war not willingly, not of our 
own acconl. We have been lighting for a j)rinciple. 



28 

That we have never surrendered nor forgotten. 
What we loved this leader for was what we deemed 
truth to our cause. 

What is our cause ? It is easier to say what it is 
not; for its essence is negative. Whatever this 
crime of assassination is, whatever it represents, 
whatever it aimed at, whatever was the spirit that 
prompted it, whatever may be now wickedly offered 
in its apology — just not tliat is our cause. And as that 
crime, in spirit, in purpose, in instigation, was all in 
the interest of human bondage, so our cause embraces 
all that is antagonistic to that system. There never 
has been but one issue in this terrible contest. Un- 
derneath all these evMent questions has been lying 
one which some of us studiously labored to ignore ; 
and that was concerning the dignity of universal 
labor, and the absolute equality of all races before 
the common law. He who, at this late day, shuts 
his eyes to this fact, is neither intelligent nor wise. 
We have fought for an open Bible, a free school, an 
unfettered press, and a Scriptural pulpit. 

In all the doctrines ostentatiously put forth by 
our foes — States' rights, uncontaminated blood, family 
pride, sectional independence — there has ever been 
this keen, sharp liking for slavery as a social system. 
They recognized it as a kind of secret zest among 
themselves ; as voluptuaries recognize, with an under- 
stood leer, a favorite lust ; as wine-bibbers recognize 
the subtle flavor of an indescribable liquor. Our 



29 

cause consists in ])recise opposition to that. We, 
therefore, have stood tor tlic right^^ of incii, tlic trutli 
of tlie Gospel, the pnncii)les of imiiumity,the integrity 
of tlie Union, tlie power of Cliristian people to 
govern themselves, the indefeasible ccpiality of all 
the creatures of God in natural conditions of exist- 
ence, no matter what may be the color of their skin. 
So the nations of the world have looked upon us, and. 
held us responsible. We were the enemies of all 
class-systems, castes, and aristocracies. We were the 
champions of manhood in all that was noble, of wo- 
manhood in all that was pure. This has been, and 
still is, our cause. 

And what I call you to learn now is, that thi-i 
cause is safe. A martyr's blo^lias sealed the cove- 
nant we are making with posterity. Oh, the glories 
of our immediate prospect of usefulness in the years 
to come ! The republic is secure. The Union is 
confirmed as a perpetual federation of States. The 
peril through which we have just passed has no par- 
allel. Our government, as an entirety, was aimed at 
with one savage blow. Such a stroke, on any other 
nation, would have rocked Christendom to its centre. 
Yet our nation is untremulous as the primeval granite. 
The nu)st delicate balances of commercial life show 
not even the semblance of noticeable variation, even 
when this violence of a ton's weight all at once jars 
the beam ! Our cause is eternally secure ! 

Think, then, as we close our meditation upon this 



30 

martyr-life, how strangely God lias overruled much 
that seemed so destructive to our o^ood. On that 
very day — they call it Good Friday — there is annually 
represented, in the Sistine Chapel, at Rome, the dis- 
aster of the world when the Redeemer was crucified. 
Thirteen lamps are lit in the darkness, ranged in 
pyramidal form, the topmost one conceived to be the 
symbol of Mesjiah. A low, mournful chant from the 
Lamentations continues to echo throuo^h the buildino- 
while one light after another is extinguished at inter- 
vals, until twelve are gone out. Only the loftiest and 
the brightest remains ; and still the chant moans on. 
Then the last one is struck, and every glimmer per- 
ishes in total gloom. Thereupon the music ends. A 
moment succeeds, of unutterable oppression — rayless 
and stifled^ — and then one voice breaks the silence ; 
a voice wailing, piercing, as if from a crushed and 
broken heart, lifting the burden of the Miserere; 
the grief of the race over its Helper and its Hope. 

Fitting seems the symbol to us now, as we look 
only on the earthly side of this tremendous loss ; on 
that same day, while the shadows were gathering in 
the chapel of that seven-hilled city, our light ap- 
peared to go out, and the nation was in the gloom. 

But to day, let us look on the heavenly side. How 
sweet and calm it is to think of that great, brave 
heart, this Easter Sabbath! He is not here, but 
risen. Far beyond the sound of battle, far beyond 
the turmoil of state, in the infinite realms of gladness. 



31 

that troiililod mind has found its rest. Mourned, a.s 
never before martyr was niournctl ; loved, jls never 
before statesman was loved ; lionored, as never ]>efore 
patriot was lionored; he lias gone down to a spotless 
grave. High over all liunian passion that disem- 
bodied spirit stands, free as the tliought that follows 
him ; the eye of faith seems to behold him even now 
on the radiant plain of eternity ; on either side falls 
away every official adornment ; the soul of the 
Christian man bends in all humility before his 
Maker's presence, saved by grace ; saved, not because 
he wore the rol)e3 of the highest station on tin- 
globe ; saved, not because of his rare gifts of affec- 
tion or intellect ; saved, not by reason of the blessed 
deeds he had done; saved, merely because of his 
faith in the Saviour, that he learned by the gi-aves 
of the boys that fell at Gettysburg; and, as you gaze 
after him, with a subdued and tearful heart, you can 
only ])ay him the tribute that trembles on the lip 
that sjieaks it — 

" He was a good 3ian, and a just ! " 



f^ 



